state legislatures

September 4, 2017 -
As wages stagnate nationally, more Southern states than ever before are embracing anti-union laws and laws to prevent local governments from raising pay and requiring family sick leave.

July 14, 2017 -
A ballot initiative campaign in Florida and a lawsuit against Louisiana seek to restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies after they're released from prison. The efforts are parts of a broader movement to overturn felony disenfranchisement laws rooted in white-supremacist politics.

June 13, 2017 -
Measures for Justice, a nonprofit that gauges the performance of criminal justice systems at the county level, has released data for six states including Florida and North Carolina. The effort shows how criminal justice is being carried out locally and where change is needed.

March 24, 2017 -
Though death sentences and executions have decreased nationally in recent years, the South continues to execute people at a disproportionate rate — but the movement to end the death penalty is picking up momentum there.

July 29, 2016 -
This week 69 state lawmakers from the Carolinas and Georgia, both Democrats and Republicans, sent a letter asking the Obama administration to block seismic testing permits for oil and gas deposits off the East Coast. They joined hundreds of other local communities, elected officials, business groups and scientists opposed to offshore exploration and drilling.

June 17, 2016 -
After the June 12 massacre at an Orlando nightclub, some politicians refused to even acknowledge the targets were LGBT people. Could it be because of their own animus toward LGBT people, which has found expression in a record number of anti-LGBT bills introduced in recent years?

May 13, 2016 -
Announcing the U.S. Justice Department would sue North Carolina over its anti-transgender "bathroom bill," Attorney General Loretta Lynch noted there's historically been backlash to equality gains. What's been happening in Southern legislatures since the Supreme Court struck down marriage discrimination last year bears that out.

January 14, 2016 -
A new report looks at the demographics of state legislatures across the country and finds that in the South they are disproportionately male and more religious. They are also more racially diverse — at least for now.

November 13, 2015 -
Republicans may dominate state politics in the South, but Democrats have managed to hold on to the mayorships of the region's biggest cities. There are limits to local control, however — and in recent years GOP state lawmakers have imposed even more.